


promise me, ned

by sternflotte



Series: winter is coming [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Gen, Prequel to Tower of Joy Scene, Tower of Joy, and lots of screaming, lots of blood, semi accurate depiction of childbirth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-27
Updated: 2016-07-23
Packaged: 2018-07-18 14:03:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7318150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sternflotte/pseuds/sternflotte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Tower of Joy Scene from Lyanna's perspective</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

She is 15 years old, a widow, a mother and about to die.

  
She can hear the sounds of the battle outside, but the handmaiden stops her from getting up to look outside of the window to see who had come for her.

  
“You mustn’t, mi'lady.” the maid says in her accent, so foreign to Lyanna's ears. “The babe is coming. You cannot get up now!”

  
Lyanna screams out her pain, screams it into the wind and prays that any of the Gods, Old or New, Red or Drowned, will hear her. It cannot be Robert, Lyanna thinks looking down at her belly, let it be one of her brothers who fights outside.

  
“Push, mi'lady!” The maid says over Lyanna's screams and she looks at her swollen stomach with worry, but Lyanna is too delirious with pain to register it.

  
She prays for guidance as the maid tells her to push, the loud clash of swords and shouting voice outside embrace her in their claustrophobic embrace.

  
Sir Oswald Whent had told her what happened to Elia Martell's children in a fit of drunken grief, and they are all what Lyanna can think of now. Arthur Dayne had pulled Whent away quickly, but he had told Lyanna enough for her to picture the three broken bodies of Elia Martell and her children. She had spent half the night retching over the chamber pot, and none of it had been because of the babe.

  
Sir Dayne had, in a solitary moment of kindness, reached out to her then. “Sir Whent was out of line, my Lady.” He had said, eyes sympathetic and even if his sympathy is only for Rhaegar's babe growing in her belly Lyanna soaks up the moment of kindness.

  
They all thought her a whore, Rhaegar's kingsguard. They all thought her cruel and seductive and had no kind words for her. And now they were dying for her.

  
It cannot be Robert, Lyanna thinks again, let it be anyone else.

  
“I see the head, mi'lady!” The maid calls out and Lyanna nearly cries in relief. “Push, mi'lady!”

  
It was strange how it was in that moment that Lyanna notices no one had called her by her name in months – not since Rhaegar had left to die.

  
She is mi'lady to her handmaiden, Lady Stark to the Kingsguard or, if they were feeling particularly cruel, Princess Targaryen. She hadn't been Lyanna for months and it is in that moment that her heart and body seems to tear in two.

  
She hears the maid gasp, as what feels like buckets of warm water spread down her legs. Lyanna screams in pain and she hears the fighting outside stop. There is silence all around her and the maid, looking numb, lifts her arms.

  
Oh, Lyanna thinks as she looked at the maid, that is my blood. The maid's dress is covered in blood completely and her forearms are painted a bright red.

  
“What happened?” Lyanna asks, hoarsely.

  
“You will be fine, mi'lady.” The maid says, smiling gently and Lyanna does not have the energy to call her a liar. “Now you just take a deep breath and push. That babe wants to get out.”

  
It feels as though she was pushing in time to the swords clashing outside the tower.

  
“Good, mi'lady. One more push.”

  
The hot and heavy smell of iron surrounds Lyanna as she whimpers through every push and she feels as though she is going to faint momentarily.

  
“You have a little boy, mi'lady!”

  
Lyanna bursts into tears as soon as the maid comes around and hands her her babe.

  
He is so small, Lyanna thinks in wonder, so small but yet so perfect. And he looks nothing like Rhaegar, and there is a strange sense of satisfaction in Lyanna.

  
He had taken her away from her family with sweet words and promises of freedom and then locked her away in a tower in Dorne with no one to talk to. She takes pleasure in not giving him the satisfaction of birthing him the Targaryen daughter he thought he so desperately needed to fulfill his stupid prophecy.

  
She was so stupid, Lyanna thinks as she looks down at her little little boy. Rhaegar had promised her everything, and left with her with a babe in her belly and no future. He had promised her a better life and now she is going to die all alone in Dorne, so far away from home.

  
There is a shout from outside and Lyanna's head snaps up. She forgot of the fighting outside, and after the shout the clashing of swords stops and the battle is over. She knows it in her heart.

  
It cannot be Robert, Lyanna chants in her head and she screws her eyes shut, her grip going loose. The maid takes her little boy from her and Lyanna keeps chanting, it cannot be Robert.

  
It cannot be Robert, let it be anyone else.


	2. coda

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> for kittycomb who commented on the last chapter of this fic. i had this written, but was not gonna post it, but here it is :)

It is not Robert and Lyanna relaxes, able for the first time to let her babe out of her sight.

 

Ned demands answers, cries and holds her hand as she dies. He sobs as she bleeds out, holding her son close to his chest and Lyanna cries for her brothers, her father, but most imporantly she cries for her son. She cries for the little babe, who she will never be able to see grow. She will never see him become the good man she is sure her brother will raise him to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as i said it is really short, but satisfying? or maybe not? let me know! 
> 
> cheers, thallen!

**Author's Note:**

> i needed to get this out so bad. lyanna is my little darling and i dislike rhaegar and robert so much (which you can probably tell)


End file.
